Braving pain & poverty

Students of St Xavier’s, Ranchi, celebrate after ISC results were declared on Friday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

They may not have topped the ICSE or ISC, but they are certainly the toppers of life’s toughest tests.

Meet a bunch of courageous teens who have pursued their academics in the face of adversities to qualify the board examinations.

Ayush Singh, an ICSE candidate from Hill Top School, Jamshedpur, will never forget his first day in the exam hall.

Acute pain in the abdomen prompted the school to send him to hospital, but Ayush was determined to sit for the test. “I requested the doctor to let me go after he had examined me. I wrote my paper despite the nagging pain,” the youngster said.

He scored 77.8 per cent.

“We don’t have any regrets. He had the courage at least to take the exam,” said principal Puneeta B. Chouhan.

Two years senior to Ayush in school, Abhishek Kumar scored 95.25 in ISC (science) despite suffering from chicken pox. “The first paper went off well. Then there was a week’s gap. A day before my second paper, which was maths, my skin got all itchy. There were rashes on my face. Doctors said I had pox. The school made special arrangements for me and I appeared for my exam,” he said.

The teen, who was also preparing for his JEE, scored 99 in mathematics.

While Abhishek comes from an upper middle class family, his father being a Tata Cummins employee, batchmate R. Kartik Kumar of ADLS Sunshine School is not as lucky.

Kartik father is an idli vendor in Jamshedpur. “I help him at his stall after school hours,” the boy said.

Despite financial constraints — Kartik could never afford private tuition like his friends — the youngster has made his hardworking father proud, scoring 75 per cent in ISC (science).

Like Kartik, Gautam Sharma of De Nobili in Mugma, Dhanbad, had no money to even pay his school tuition fee. But, the 17-year-old did offer the perfect gurudakshina to his mentors by scoring 98 per cent in ISC (science).

Son of a security agency operator, Gautam bagged 95 in English, 100 each in maths and physics and 95 in chemistry. “My family income is Rs 5,000-10,000. I often borrowed study material from friends. I am glad I did well. “I would like to clear the civil services examination after doing my engineering,” he said.

Principal of De Nobili School K.A. Jose added: “The key to success is hard work. We are proud of Gautam. If he has made it this far, he will realise his dreams too.”